Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

An odd choice for light reading you might think but I thoroughly enjoyed this play, despite not alot actually happening, and I will probably keep my eyes on the lookout for a stage version to attend.

Twice when I told people that I was reading this they couldn't wait to tell me how much they hated this play and it always transpires that they studied it at school.  A third person who also knows the play well gave the impression that he found it a very boring piece of literature and it makes me wonder if I have a very strange sense of what I find enjoyable or, and I think this is closer to the truth, high school english has a lot to answer for in terms of ruining perfectly good pieces of writing by making the students analyse and dissect meanings that are merely assumed and never intended.

I didn't take 7th Form english purely because I couldn't stand what they make you do to good books.  I remember studying The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier in 5th Form english and perhaps much to my credit, I still remember it as a great book, despite taking it to pieces analytically.  I also still read Shakespeare and the old poets so maybe it is just me but I digress.

Most people I've talked to can't stand the books, plays, poems that they were made to study back in high school and I think this is a ridiculous situation which counteracts what studying english is trying to achieve, ie. a love of all literature.

But I still digress, so back to Godot.  I loved it.  The whole time I read it I held a visual image of the characters in my head, either in the real landscape or on a man-made stage setting, and the story just seemed to come alive for me, both mentally and visually.

Yes, it is a play where nothing happens but I think you can also argue that everything happens during the nothingness.  Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for Godot and in waiting they devise a whole series of distractions to pass the time.  They moan, they jest, they sleep, they ponder, they curse, they contemplate suicide, they dance, they pontificate.. the list goes on.

Their actions are broken in both Acts byt the arrival of Pozzo and Lucky who simply add to the action and distractions of the nothingness.  I can still picture Lucky's monologue of verbal diarrohea as the three other characters scramble about him to take off his hat and thus make him quiet once more.

I sniggered quite a bit during this book and I really do think it is a brilliant piece of writing.

I was just reading some reviews of the play which are really analytical observations and suggestions as to the symbolism of the characters, the setting, and the non-appearing Godot.  While academically you could argue that there is a lot of merit to be had in such reviews, to me I felt it all a bit unneccesary.  Is it not enough to simply enjoy a good piece of writing and then leave it alone?

In my opinion that is how you should approach this play.  It can be read very quickly as it is quite short, and just enjoy the pictures it conjures up and the simplicity of the characters and their laughable foibles.  It is a good piece of writing, better if you don't over-analyse it.